


625

by CharmmyColour



Series: Lonely Together [3]
Category: Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Genre: Backstory, Cameos, Denial, Gen, Genetic Engineering, Humor, Isolation, Light Angst, Past, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Same universe than Lonely Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27314785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharmmyColour/pseuds/CharmmyColour
Summary: After years of hard work, Doctor Jumba Jookiba has finally created the most vicious, destructive, dangerous creature in the entire universe. He can't wait to see his new experiment cause absolute chaos across the galaxy!Experiment 625, however, seems to have other priorities. Priorities that involve food, babbling and making Jumba realize uncomfortable truths he has been denying himself for too long.
Relationships: Jumba Jookiba & Reuben | Experiment 625
Series: Lonely Together [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730134
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	625

Asteroid P-002 was deemed isolated and pretty much irrelevant in the vast amount of celestial objects that formed the Turo sector. It was not close enough to the capital planet to which the sector owed its name to be a good location for housing, yet it was orbiting too far to be considered a good point for commercial transactions. It was far too small for installing factories and lacked any resource that could be exploited for profit. If that was not reason enough for it to be considered unsuitable, a curtain of tiny asteroids was always surrounding the area, making it difficult to drive near the location with most ships.

It was a mystery, then, why someone had decided the remote piece of land was the perfect place to build a laboratory. Whoever they had been and whatever had been their reasoning had been lost long before Rupert Hämsterviel and his associate, Jumba Jookiba, decided to buy the old structure for themselves. The building had been abandoned for nearly ten years at that point, and all they could assume about the previous owner was that they probably couldn’t be considered entirely sane and were for sure a criminal.

Hämsterviel and Jumba didn’t mind. They were also criminals, and, if you asked the latter, he would declare himself not to be entirely sane either. The old laboratory was perfect for what they intended to do.

“They,” however, soon proved to be an overstatement; Jumba was soon hit with the realization that he was going to work alone. Jacques Von Hämsterviel (who indeed had changed his name after establishing in Turo) was too busy making contacts, sweet-talking the future victims of their schemes, and finding his way into the planet’s mafias to even step in the building. Jumba couldn’t help but notice that this seemed to include a lot of parties, money and accommodations he had no access to, but decided it was probably just his imagination.

Jumba did make the best of the situation. Fixed the entire building, updated it and kept it operational despite being the only person in charge. Almost a decade and hundreds of experiments later, the place didn’t resemble its previous state at all besides the outside structure. Asteroid P-002 had now one of the most advanced laboratories in the entire sector, with a nice red spaceship always parked in the entrance.

That didn’t mean Jumba liked anyone to actually be there.

Had anyone been close enough, they would probably have found annoying the exaggerated loud laugh the scientist often hollered, more than proud of his own evil accomplishments. Had anyone been close enough, they would have noticed Jumba’s laugh was particularly loud and gleeful one day, and that the power supply had failed in all the immediate area around the asteroid after a powerful surge in the building. Had anyone been close enough, they definitely would have suspected something evil, illegal, and really, really dangerous was happening inside that laboratory.

But no one was. No one ever was.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Jumba laughed, seeing the green lights taking over the entire building. “Soon will be completed! Most evil creation yet!”

His laughter was only interrupted when he had a coughing fit caused by the lack of air. For a Kweltikwanian, Jumba was far from being considered in good shape, albeit overworking yourself to exhaustion doing research and only eating junk food (when eating at all) could take a toll on any body. It was worth it, of course; his last experiment was done and awakening to life in front of his own eyes.

“Now, no being shy,” the scientist cooed, getting closer to the canister’s glass that so far was covered with a dense fog. “Let evil genius see you.”

The fog dissipated a little, making his latest creation visible. At first glance, it was only a ball of deep yellow fur that was shaking slightly with the electricity still crossing its body.

And then, in a sudden violent movement, a clawed arm raised from it, reaching into the air like it was going to tear it apart. Then another one, and another one, and another one, until four of them emerged menacingly from the body. A series of long, sharp spines was next, and as the ball rose to its feet to show its true form, two vicious black eyes looked at Jumba, accompanied by a grin full of sharp teeth.

“Welcome to the world, 625.” Jumba could barely contain his laughter and excitement. He rubbed his hands together, ranting to himself while he checked the vitals on a nearby machine. “Molecular charging will be completed in few moments; other vitals are being stable. Needed lot of energy to power you, 625! But will be worth it. With superior intellect and added abilities, it will be possible for you to cause chaos and destruction in all planets across…!”

“I’ll pass.”

“Be excusing me?” Jumba blinked, dumbfounded, turning to the experiment.

The yellow creature had simply sat down, and his initial ferocious expression had been replaced by a lazy smile. Despite the extra arms, the claws and the sharp teeth, he didn’t look threatening at all.

“I’ll pass. Not my thing,” 625 repeated in a casual tone. “I mean, what do I get for destroying planets? Nothing, I tell ya.”

“Well, eh…” Jumba was not used to his experiments being so utterly dismissive of their programming. “Destroying is fun; that is being enough reason.”

“Doesn’t sound like fun to me. Really, I don’t wanna do that.”

“Then what is little guy wanting to do?” The scientist crossed his arms.

“Man, that’s a good question.” He pondered for a few seconds. “Now that ya mention it, I’m quite hungry.”

Jumba knew that 625, the same way as all the other experiments of his creation, didn’t need to eat, and was sure he could not feel anything similar to hunger. But if the small guy still craved some food, considering he had just awakened to the world, Jumba guessed he could give him a treat. Of course, it was not that he had any kind of soft spot for his experiments, such a silly notion.

“Going to release 625 now,” Jumba warned, tentatively reaching a button near the canister with his hand. “Not to be destructive, yes?”

“Couldn’t pay me for it!”

Jumba pressed the button and the glass canister raised, leaving the yellow experiment free. The scientist covered himself for a second out of habit (625 wouldn’t be the first experiment to promise to behave only to nearly kill him afterwards), but the furry creature only looked around and lazily stood up.

“Man, you got carried away with the limb stuff, eh?” 625 commented, stretching his arms. He looked at his own body and decided synchronizing four limbs was too hard. The experiment retracted the second set of arms, the claws and the spikes on his back. He checked again, satisfied. “Much better!”

“No, no, extra arms are supposed to help destructive programming!” Jumba protested.

“Ah, but I’m not destroying anything, am I?” 625 replied with a good ton of sass in his voice. Jumba made a note for himself that perhaps the next experiment didn’t need advanced linguistic skills.

“Be waiting here,” the scientist instructed over his shoulder, and he headed to a little fridge in the corner.

There was never much food in the lab, and if it weren’t for Jumba, it wouldn’t be any at all. But the atmosphere of Turo wasn’t as rich in nutrients as Kweltikwan, and sometimes he still needed to eat to keep his insane work schedule going. Most of the time, he just put whatever he had between two pieces of bread because it was faster to consume, and bread was usually soft enough for his fangs to manage. A lot more than other foods he had tried, anyway.

After a moment, he decided to take some meat and sauce together with the bread and headed back to the table. 625 was looking around, seemingly analyzing his own characteristics on the screen.

“Here.” Jumba left the ingredients next to him. “Is 625 feeling alright?”

“So far, yes.” He looked at the food and titled his head. “This doesn’t look very appealing.”

“No, no, it’s supposed to be combined,” the scientist clarified, and to make his point, he started preparing a sandwich under the interested gaze of his experiment. “See? Put things between bread. Now is sandwich to be consumed in busy schedule.”

“Sandwich, huh?” 625 replied, seemingly fascinated by the idea. He tried a bit, only to yelp slightly when his own sharp teeth were too much for the soft snack. Retracting most of it to adapt his dental structure better, he tried again and his face lit up.

Jumba looked at him, brushing the few hairs on his head with his hand. This was not what was supposed to be happening.

“Where are we, anyway?” 625 asked, looking around. “Man, you could really invest in windows.”

“Wh…” Jumba shook his head. What did he create? “We are in Turo.”

“Oh, wow, thanks; naming a whole star system really is helping me to know where we are,” the experiment replied, between sarcastic and sassy.

“...Meaning Asteroid P-002, orbiting Turo planet.”

“So, just to be clear, you decided the best place to put your highly illegal laboratory was on an asteroid orbiting the planet with the most laws in this part of the galaxy and home of the Galactic Alliance, rules I’m pretty sure you’re breaking altogether?”

“Jumba didn’t decide it!” the scientist barked, irritated.

“So then who?”

“My lab partner thought would be good for business,” Jumba said gingerly. The topic was uncomfortable for him.

“Oh, and where are they? Didn’t help you?” 625 replied. If he had noticed the tone change, he didn’t care.

“...No,” the Kweltikwanian confessed, almost embarrassed. He was quick to not allow his feelings to take over him. “He’s at very important mansion party to contact future clients.”

“Jeez, and why are we here and not at the party? You got the short end of the stick.”

“Not true,” Jumba stated defensively, but his tone betrayed his words. “See, Jumba can work all day in here. Is fun!”

“We have very different ideas of what ‘fun’ means, pal!”

The scientist groaned, annoyed at the remark. If he had to be honest with himself; it was true that Hämsterviel had been taking far more than he was giving back for some years now, but he was not going to admit that to his recently-born creation. He looked at the yellow creature happily chewing at his sandwich and softened a bit. Why did his experiments always turn this fluffy? He had to correct that somehow.

“So, I’m a failure, huh?” 625 commented casually, taking another bit of his snack.

“Well…yes.” Jumba rubbed the back of his neck. It never felt good to fail, but at least his experiments weren’t usually aware of it. This one was. “However, 625 seem to still possess expected high intellect. Not complete disaster.”

“You’ll keep trying for a better one, then?”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean for me?” 625 finished his sandwich. He didn’t look worried at all, though he had to know the options were not going to be good. Jumba hated when his creations turned this self-aware, but it was unfortunately something that always accompanied high intelligence. It made them feel too much like himself.

But they were not pets, or friends, or other Kweltikwanians. They were experiments.

And Jumba made sure to treat them like such.

“Need you to be kept activated to explore genetic material and find mistake in programming,” the scientist stated. “As 625 is not showing rebellious behavior, I suppose can remain outside canister. So long is being useful to Jumba, yes?”  
The experiment didn’t seem impressed. He looked around lazily. “Do you have more of that sandwich thingy? Man, it was delicious. I have to learn how to make them.”

“Perhaps 625 can prepare food for Jumba. Last attempt didn’t turn out good,” Jumba muttered as he took some more ingredients from the fridge and let the new experiment prepare himself more food. “Be following me; going to show facility now.”

As sassy as the yellow creature was, he knew better than to make his creator reconsider the option of keeping him free, and so he jumped off the table and followed him, nibbling on his snack. The scientist just side-eyed him once to confirm he was following before he started walking through the building, first approaching a couple of creatures that seemed to be busy organizing a pile of files.

“This is 134, who shreds documents for me.” Jumba gestured vaguely at the little green experiment, who waved at them. “Experiment 521 is good for duct tape, but be careful; he likes to cover people with it.” The creature grinned at them as they passed.

“You’ve made tons of these guys, huh?” 625 commented, looking around at the other experiments. He noticed that despite the help, the lab was still a mess of papers, dirty clothes and broken material everywhere. “Don’t you have one to clean a little? This place is a mess.”

“Had one once,” Jumba admitted. “But couldn’t tell difference between dirt to clean and unbathed genius to leave alone, so had to put in canister. Now having 158, that finds stuff for Jumba. Better deal!” He waved at the mousy red experiment, who jumped excitedly.

“You know, I’m sure you could have fixed it. I’m getting the impression you just like livin’ in chaos,” 625 pointed out.

Jumba smirked. “See door? 455 is guarding entrance for me. She is, as they say, bouncer,” the scientist went on. 455 was laying on the floor, and a smaller orange experiment was jumping happily on her tummy. They seemed to be good friends. “609 scares postal man with heat laser. Not to be messing with them.”

“I wasn’t planning to;” 625 replied. He could fight them both easily. The point was he was too lazy for it.

“And this is one of favorites!” Jumba ended, presenting a big brown experiment with a hole on his head. “014! Be doing your thing!”

The creature smiled before starting to make popcorn directly from his head. Jumba proudly stood at his side, showing off his creation. As much as the scientist hated to chew, he enjoyed licking the salt from the popcorn for hours, putting a good chunk in his mouth and let it rest there until there it wasn’t more than unflavored, white mush.

“Whatcha say, you really planned this,” 625 commented.

“Now to be following me, yes?” Jumba gestured at his creation as he headed to another section of the building. “Showing you important part.”

Not all 624 experiments were activated. Some had never been out of their pods at all, and some had been dehydrated shortly after their creation, as Jumba didn’t have a purpose for them or they were a safety hazard. However, when possible, the scientist liked to keep his creations active, even if they were too rebellious to be left to their own shenanigans and had to be restrained in canisters. It made the place feel less lonely.

Jumba kept the canisters in the basement for safety reasons. The area was accessed through an elevator and had an important increase in security, requiring the Kweltikwanian to scan his retinas and input a password before being granted access. The view once they reached their destination made 625 whistle.

The room was huge, hundreds of canisters filling the shelves from top to floor. While there were a lot of empty ones in the higher levels, the canisters closer to them were mostly filled with experiments. It was a truly incredible sight, but it didn’t seem to be what Jumba wanted to show to 625, as he kept walking through the corridor without addressing the room.

“Hey, boss, when are you gonna let us go? It’s effing boring in here, you know!” A female green experiment protested from the inside of one of the canisters as they passed by.

“Aha! So you can be traitors to evil genius again?” Jumba replied, pointing at her face though the glass. The small creature scoffed.

“Come on, 150 and I were only having fun!” She added with a smirk. “How could we possibly know you wanted your magnetic chamber to not be sold to the black market?”

“I’m onto your little game, 149;” Jumba hissed. “You are staying here until you learn to respect evil genius creator.”

149 crossed her arms and blew a raspberry at the scientist. 150 seemed more apologetic, though 625 heavily suspected it had to do more with the frustration of being caught than actual regret of his actions.

“And what does this little fella do?” The newest experiment commented, looking at a little grey creature with a spatula.

“062. Very dangerous,” Jumba replied. “Made him to cook for hungry scientist.”

“ _Bon appetit!_ ” The creature grinned.

“He doesn’t seem that bad,” 625 tilted his head, looking through the glass.

“Heh, turns out evil genius can only make evil experiments,” Jumba laughed. “So it makes highly addictive food that is being impossible to resist, and then eats you. Tried to eat me!”

“How come you could resist, if it was impossible?”

“Not easy task! Evil genius only survived because species is usually not needing food, so was being able to control appetite enough to capture it,” he paused a moment to think. “Also probably helped was no food available in all asteroid, but was mostly me being genius.”

“Sure thing, buddy,” 625 chortled. Jumba looked down at him with annoyance, but ended up smirking. Well, at the very least, the little guy had guts. “What about this one? Aw, he’s cute!” he looked at the small, pink creature with a pacifier.

“151,” Jumba informed. “Turns people into babies to not be able to fight back invasion.”

“And this?” 625 pointed to a white sheep-like creature.

“360 causes deep slumber until…”

“How ‘bout this one?” The experiment didn’t even wait for an answer, looking at another canister with a big-eyed mouse. The creature was immediately startled and turned invisible. “Oh, I can kinda figure.”

“Definitely not installing advanced linguistic skill to next one,” Jumba groaned. “Can we be walking now?”

“Oh yeah. Sorry man, got carried away,” 625 shrugged. The Kweltikwanian kept advancing through the corridor as the yellow creature followed his steps.

However, the experiment sensed the gaze of a pair of eyes that felt different from the rest. 625 couldn't quite explain why, but he was suddenly filled with some kind of tension coming from one canister in particular, some kind of sad and bitter feeling. He glanced at it for his eyes to be locked with another experiment.

He resembled 625 greatly in his original form, down to the two pairs of arms and the sharp teeth, but was much skinnier and with larger ears. Most of his fur was dark green; he had a blonde mohawk adorning his head. The experiment looked at 625 as he slowly nibbled at his sandwich, wondering why this one in particular had caught his attention. He just could feel such bizarre energy coming from him. Such a weirdo.

625 suddenly realized Jumba hadn't stopped walking and there was quite some space between them, and decided to ignore the other experiment and storm behind his creator. The green creature rested his hands against the glass and sighed. If he happened to whisper something, it reached no one.

“Here you are being,” Jumba noted to his latest creation once he caught with him.

625 was about to ask about his encounter when he was distracted by a new experiment: a pink female that winced at him. “Ohoho, hello, cutie…”

“Not getting hopes high. 123 is programmed to make living organisms dance until physical exhaustion. Possibly death,” Jumba stated cheerily.

“If anything, gotta admire how you can make anything evil. Dancing, sleeping, eating… even babies,” 625 observed.

“Ah! Big brain for crimes! Glad to have experiment that can appreciate true value of evil pursuits.”

“Good, evil, don’t care about that stuff,” the experiment licked his teeth. “But I can value someone that’s just vibin’ without caring what the rest of the world thinks. You’re not the worst creator to be stuck with, is what I mean.”

“Nice enough,” Jumba snorted.

The scientist stopped in front of a big gate and started inputting a new password (which 625 noticed seemed to be based on resolving some insanely complex bioengineering equations) to grant access. Jumba didn’t need much time to open the door; not for nothing was he a genius.

That room was much smaller, mostly filled with samples of genetic material. Like the main facility upstairs, the center of the room was equipped with a circular table with a canister in the center, but the area was quite dark, probably to not disturb the strange substances around the place. 625 wriggled his nose and stared blankly. Upon activating his night vision, he was able to see the canister in the center contained the abstract form of a creature floating in some kind of green mixture.

“Welcome to creation facility!” Jumba gloated. “Here, evil genius elaborates concepts for new experiments and works on initial programming. Sort of drawing table, yes?”

“Very cool,” 625 whistled again. “So, you brought me here because…”

“Because,” Jumba cut him off sharply. “625 had been failure. I am needing you to be wired to main computer to see what part of code is not working properly. We are going to use same basic structure for new experiment, but with proper fixes this time.”  
“Wait, ‘we’?” 625’s brow furrowed. “When did I sign up for this?”

“Look, sassy furball is having two options here,” the scientist stated. “Our 625 is being wired to computer and then held in canister with rest of experiments…” The yellow creature shuddered a little at the thought. “...or is making itself useful for evil genius.”  
“Ya know I could easily kill you before you capture me, yeah?” 625 nibbled at the last bit of his sandwich.

“Ah, but will you?” Jumba smirked.

“Eh, fair point,” the experiment shrugged. Yeah, he was too lazy for that. “So how do I ‘make myself useful’ or whatever?” He made quote fingers.

“May be lazy and…with strange appetite,” Jumba replied. “But! Still genius, yes? Can help with new design.”

“Yeah, absolutely not.”

“Tsk. At least willing to be assistant? Bring tools? Perhaps food when needed?” 625 perked up, interested at the last part. “Can make sandwiches for evil genius.”

“You know, that I can get behind,” 625 smirked. He held his tiny paw towards the scientist. “But when you don’t need me, I wanna work on my cooking abilities for myself. Deal?”

Jumba raised an eyebrow. Well, the little guy was quite fun to be around and not dangerous, so that could work for both of them. He smirked, lowering his body to be able to take the small paw between his huge fingers.

“Deal.”

...

“You really have to dehydrate me too?” 625 asked, chewing at his sandwich.

The experiment had to admit he rather liked his newly-acquired life. Okay, being wired to the computer and scanned for errors was not fun but had only lasted so long, and after that, 625 was given free roam through the building as long as he didn’t cause any trouble. He liked his “assistant” job, which mostly consisted of slacking off and making snacks, and of course a lot of learning how to make the perfect sandwich. From time to time, his creator needed him to bring something or help with some programming, but it didn’t bother him much.

He liked Jumba. The Kweltikwanian was a rascal with absolutely no regard for rules and, well, 625 had never been a fan of rules. Probably because Jumba had made him in the first place.

Sometimes, they even just talked as one ate and the other worked. It was nice.

“Heh, ILLEGAL genetic experiments, remember?” Jumba snorted, poking his creation’s nose. “Can’t pass you safely through borders.”

“Traveling around with 625 pods is still suspicious as heck.”

“Not putting you on display. Going to hide into heart of ship engine.”

“And you, like, really have to go to that conference thing? Whatcha gonna do, show your collection around?”

“Hämsterviel is needing proof of work to show new clients, said to me,” the scientist explained, organizing the pods in their new container. “Hence needing genius’ help.”

“That sounds like he’s going to boost ‘his’ experiments around while you struggle to save his ass from embarrassing himself,” 625 pointed out.

“No, am…!” Jumba started, but really, nothing came to mind. He was going to do exactly that, and both knew it.

“Listen, I don’t care about your business, but maybe putting your foot down for once wouldn’t kill ya,” the experiment went on, mustard dripping on his tummy. “Whatever does that toothy-face do for you, huh?”

Jumba groaned. He didn’t want to answer and acknowledge out loud the truth. Maybe it was time to consider alternatives. Maybe it really was time to put his foot down.

625 smirked at him and Jumba knew he had thoroughly enjoyed making Jumba angry. The little thing was lazy for sure, but still evil. Maybe he was capable of doing more than just bringing him tools.

“Get into canister,” the scientist ordered, and 625 just shrugged and obeyed as he finished his sandwich. “Going to dehydrate you now.”

“I’m the last one?”

“Yes. All others already packed for trip.”

“What about the new guy?”

“626? Is almost ready. If being lucky, maybe can activate tonight.”

“Does Hämsterviel know about that one?”

“...Not yet.”

“Guessed so.”

“Be seeing you soon, 625; be seeing you soon,” Jumba muttered.

He lowered the lever responsible for dehydration and converted the last of his creations into a colorful pod. With the improved design of the experiment container, it should be easy to hide them between the wires of the ship, and then Jumba would be able to work on 626 all night.

But first, he really needed to talk with Hämsterviel.


End file.
